Untcigahunk: The Complete Little Brothers Read online

  UNTCIGAHUNK: THE COMPLETE LITTLE BROTHERS

  By Rick Hautula

  This eBook edition published in 2010

  www.ghostwriterpublications.com

  www.rickhautala.com

  Main novel originally published as ‘Little Brothers’ in 1988.

  Copyright © Rick Hautala 2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The moral right of the authors has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  ISBN 978-1-907190-06-3

  AN INTRODUCTION TO UNTCIGAHUNK: The Complete Little Brothers

  Parents don’t love one child more than another. At least they shouldn’t. Sure, some parents might understand or “get” one child more than another; some children are more difficult to raise; and parents no doubt love each child in different ways; but a parent’s love is (or at least should be) unconditional.

  The same applies to a writer’s books.

  I love every one of my books, of course, but you should by no means think that means I think any of them perfect. Far from it. But if I didn’t love my books, I wouldn’t have written them in the first place.

  Once a book is finished, though, a writer can pause and look at it and see—like parents with their children—that some aspects are just not quite right. Some books are easier to write while others are hell on wheels tough to get out onto the computer screen. But every book is imperfect in some way or other … sometimes in far too many ways.

  Writers also, of course, are never fully satisfied with the finished book. No book I’ve ever written scratches the itch to my satisfaction. Otherwise, why bother to write another one?

  That being said, I can state that Little Brothers and the short stories gathered here under the title Untcigahunk are special to me for a couple of reasons.

  Although I am often asked (and usually irritated by) the question: “Where do you get your ideas?” I remember quite clearly when the initial idea for Little Brothers hit me. It wasn’t exactly a stunning moment of overwhelming creative insight. It was more in reaction to a comment from my editor on my second novel, the atrociously named Moonbog.

  Side note: After working on my second novel for more than a year, my editor didn’t like that this book wasn’t supernatural, as was my first novel, Moondeath. Why the “Moon” in the first two titles? All I’ll say is, these weren’t my working titles for those books. Those titles were foisted on me by my editor. The original titles were The Dark Brother for Moondeath, and simply The Bog for Moonbog. After having the title of my third novel, Nightstone, also forced on me against my strenuous objections—the original was The Menhir—I was determined to come up with a title for my fourth book that the editor wouldn’t be able to change no matter how much she might want to. Hence, Little Brothers.

  Any way, while I was revising Moonbog, my editor kept asking me why I couldn’t put, like, some creatures in the bog that were killing off the people of the town. If you’ve read Moonbog, you know that it’s more of a mystery/thriller than a straight horror novel. When I saw the hideous cover art for the book, I was appalled. It was terrible. Ridiculous. Funny, even. My first reaction was that anyone who bought the book based on the cover art would be disappointed because the cover totally misrepresented the contents while anyone who might actually enjoy the story would never buy a book with such a cover. I saw this as a lose/lose proposition, but I was just starting out, and I had zero clout with the publisher.

  Welcome to the world of publishing.

  Moonbog it was, atrocious cover and all.

  When my editor kept asking me to “insert” some creatures that hid in the woods and killed people, while I was fishing for an idea to follow up my third novel, Nightstone, I gravitated toward that suggestion. After doing a small amount of research into Native American myths and legends and a whole lot of “making stuff up to suit the story,” I hit upon the idea of the Untcigahunk, the Micmac word for “little brother.” I created forest creatures who, like locusts, emerge periodically from underground and wreak havoc.

  I thought it was a cool idea at the time, and I obviously still like it. That’s why later on I wrote these short stories. I kept getting ideas for new ways to deliver the depredations of these creatures. With “Witch House,” I even concocted an “origins” story that is hinted at by the “cellar hole” in the novel. I was also working with comic book artists Steve Bissette and Michael Zulli, hoping to launch a Little Brothers graphic novel, but for a variety of reasons, that never came to pass.

  Since writing Little Brothers, I’ve gravitated more toward ghost stories, which have always been a passion of mine. Starting with Nightstone and right through to Waiting, the novel I recently completed and hope will be published soon, I’ve enjoyed the eerie, spectral frisson of the ghost story. The bulk of my novels are more “supernatural” than “horror,” if I can make such a distinction.

  But I’ve always liked writing monster stories too, as Little Brothers and the later books Moonwalker (also not my original title, which was The Siege) and The Mountain King attest. They’re a blast to write, and it’s always a challenge to come up with something original.

  I hope I don’t sound too egotistical here when I say that I think the “little brothers” are unique. It never fails that when I do a book signing, at least one person—often several—will say that Little Brothers is their favorite novel of mine. Sometimes, that comment hurts because...well, the book was my fourth novel. I would like to think that, after writing something like thirty novels, some of my more recent books would hit the mark a bit better. But I was also always a proud parent, as it were.

  I enjoyed writing this book, and now that it’s the first of my “children” to see electronic publication, it’s like the novel is the first of my children to go to graduate school for an advanced degree. I have always harbored the hopes that—someday—someone in Hollywood would read this book and want to make a movie of it. With the CGI effects filmmakers can pull off these days, it would make for one fun scare fest. Who knows? Maybe it will happen.

  In any event, I hope you enjoy the book and stories—either for the first time or for a second go-‘round.

  Beastly good wishes!

  Rick Hautala

  March 21, 2010

  Westbrook, ME

  UNTCIGAHUNK-THE NOVEL

  PART ONE

  JUNE 17 THROUGH JUNE 19

  “Poika on poika vaikka kuinka sen rasvassa paistaa.”

  A Finnish expression which, loosely translated, means: “Boys will be boys no matter how long you fry them in fat.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  “The Cellar Hole”

  1

  Kip Howard was lying on the couch, trying to keep his gaze from wandering out the window. Beyond the splashes of green leaves blowing gently by the window, he could see rafts of white clouds sliding smoothly along the horizon. Sunlight glinted from the wooden windowsill and caught spinning motes of dust.

  This is getting to be too much like school, he thought as he shifted uncomfortably, me, wishing I was outside...not in here.

  It was the middle of June. The last day of school was so close he could practically smell it; but this...the end of this wasn’
t in sight. Not this month...not this year...not ever, he was beginning to feel.

  “So,” the voice beside him said gently, “you said you had an ‘okay’ week. Do you want to tell me anything else about it?”

  Kip shifted his head and took several seconds to look at Dr. Fielding. She sat with her left leg crossed over her right knee. Her gold Cross pen was poised over an open spiral-bound notebook, and she was looking at him over the large rims of her round glasses.

  “Just okay,” he answered. “Nothin’ special.”

  The sun reflecting off the windowsill caught the blue silky fabric of her blouse and shattered into a dazzle of light. The color made him think of the sky just after the sun had set, but for some reason, that thought sent a chill through him.

  “Have you been getting along any better with your brother?” Dr. Fielding asked. She was trying not to let it show, but Kip was pretty sure she was getting impatient. But why should she be the one getting impatient?...I’m the one who doesn’t want to be here.

  “Marty? He’s an as— He’s a jerk.” Kip had been close to letting the word asshole slip out, but he’d caught himself. He wondered why, if Dr. Fielding was supposed to be helping him, he felt so uncomfortable about swearing in front of her.

  “Has he done anything—this week? Anything that bothered you?”

  Kip shrugged and shifted his gaze back out the window. He pondered how long it had been since he started coming here. This was the second June he’d been doing this, so it had been more than a year...well over a year. But last June was different. After everything that had happened, spending time with Dr. Fielding had been—well, if not new, at least exciting. Now, it just felt like a chore.

  “If it’s all the same to you,” Kip said, “I’d just as soon cut this session short today. I think maybe I got a touch of spring fever or something.”

  He cleared his throat and started to shift to a sitting position, but Dr. Fielding’s next question took his strength from him, and he sagged back.

  “You’re not hiding anything from me, now, are you, Kip?”

  Kip shook his head...perhaps too vigorously. “Why would I do something like that?”

  “Well...how’s school been going for you? Have you started to pull your grades up any?”

  “Yeah...sure,” Kip said edgily. “I guess I’m doing okay.”

  “Have you had any more nightmares?”

  Again, Kip shook his head, answering honestly, “No. Not this past week, anyway.”

  “Look, Kip,” Dr. Fielding said gently, but still, she held the pen poised over the paper. “I know you well enough to know when you’re holding back on me. I certainly hope by now I have your confidence.”

  “You do... Really,” Kip answered, but he didn’t even try to mask the irritation he was feeling. He didn’t like the way she could always do that—make him feel like he was made of glass or something; how she could read him so easily. At twelve years old, he was starting to think he was a little more complicated than that.

  “So...?”

  Kip sighed. The sunlight on the windowsill wavered, and he thought for a moment that the clouds floating by had turned to gray, threatening rain.

  “It’s my dad,” Kip said, fighting the constriction in his throat. The sound of her writing made him think, strangely enough, of the scraping sound of a fly caught between two panes of glass.

  “What about your dad?” Dr. Fielding asked.

  “He’s...umm.” Kip swallowed, but the lump in his throat wouldn’t go down. “He’s thinking about starting to work on the house again.”

  “You mean the new house?”

  “Um-hum.” Kip nodded, suddenly conscious of the tension building in his shoulders. “The new one.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “How do you think I feel?” Kip said, suddenly exploding. His eyes started stinging as tears gathered. He knew that feeling well enough, but he told himself not to start crying now...not in front of her...not again.

  “I can see how much it upsets you,” Dr. Fielding said softly. “Can you tell me why?”

  “You know damn well why,” Kip replied. He knew she meant well; he could hear the kindness and concern in her voice, but he couldn’t hold back his anger and pain any longer. His lower lip started trembling, and the stinging in his eyes got worse. “It’s the whole reason I’m coming here to see you, isn’t it?”

  “Has coming here helped?” she asked, shifting forward but refraining from putting her hand on his shoulder.

  “I still can’t remember what I...what I saw, if that’s what you mean. I know that I found—” His voice twisted off with a high note, and as much as he tried to stop it, tears spilled from his eyes. “She was dead...my mother was dead...there...in the cellar hole.”

  Dr. Fielding reached behind her and snapped a tissue from the Kleenex designer box. She handed it to him and he took it without a word.

  “She was all cut up...slashed. I remember—or almost remember what I saw. There was something down there with her. Some things in the cellar hole. Lots of them. But—still—you know, in my mind, it’s all a blur. I saw this...this flurry of activity...almost like they were giant rats or something...” His voice twisted off with a high note.

  “Tell me some more about the cellar hole itself,” Dr. Fielding said mildly.

  Kip dabbed his eyes, then blew his nose vigorously. The clouds floating beyond the trees had, he decided, definitely turned darker.

  “The cellar...where my mom and dad were going to build the house.” He closed his eyes tightly until the pressure squeezed out a few more tears. “They had bought the land on Kaulback Road, in Thornton, a year before I was born, but with being so busy at his job and all, my dad never got a chance to start building until—I guess it was around when I was six he started clearing out the land.”

  “And this cellar hole where he was planning to build the new house, there used to be another house there, right?” Dr. Fielding asked.

  Kip nodded. “The kids at school—’specially Patrick MacNair—said it was where there used to be a witch’s house. My dad checked into it, and the best he ever found out was a few of the men around town said that sometime back in Colonial times there was a house there that burned down. When we were first clearing the land, when I was little, I remember finding old rusted pieces of metal and stuff—just junk my parents threw away, but it was like a treasure hunt for me.”

  Dr. Fielding shrugged her shoulders, unable to suppress a shiver. “And what did you think about that, about the idea that the cellar hole might be haunted or cursed or something?”

  Kip stifled a chuckle, but the thought of it made his stomach feel like he’d just swallowed a snowball. “I guess I was pretty scared...I mean, I was only seven at the time, and I was the new kid in town ‘n all; ‘n I didn’t know if they were serious or just teasing. But I guess— when I think about it—I wasn’t too keen on the idea of building the house where someone else’s house used to be.”

  “How do you feel about it now?”

  “Come on,” Kip said, suddenly angry. “I told you a hundred times everything I remember from that day.”

  “Maybe if you tell me again, a little more of it will come back to you.”

  Kip heaved a deep sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. “My dad was cutting down some trees so the backhoe and the cement truck would be able to get in to pour the foundation. My mom was—” Again, his voice hitched, and tears burned in his eyes. “She was down in the cellar, picking up rocks and branches and stuff so they could dig the cellar deeper. I had a little toy saw and hammer, and I was over near my dad, pretending I was taking down trees. I remember the chainsaw he was using made an awful lot of noise, and it smoked a lot.

  Kip sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

  “I remember how every now and then I’d look over at the cellar hole, and I’d see some sticks or a rock come flying up out of there. I remember seeing my mom’s hands flash up abov
e the level of the ground.”

  “It was getting late. We were gonna be leaving soon. I was down toward the end of the driveway with my dad, and all of a sudden I got—I don’t know how to explain it, this really weird feeling, like something was wrong. I didn’t know what it was. I had seen Bambi recently, and I remember thinking how the deer must have felt when the forest was on fire. I got that same jumpy feeling except it was for myself. I couldn’t help myself. I started to scream, but my father didn’t hear me over the sound of the chainsaw, so I ran up to the cellar hole, and that’s when I—I saw—”

  Kip’s voice choked off again, and he covered his eyes with both hands, pressing the heels of his palms so hard against his eyes squiggling point of light filled his vision. His thin shoulders shook like he had a chill.

  “Kip,” Dr. Fielding said softly, sounding like she was a hundred miles away. “Kip, don’t force yourself to—”

  “When I got there...to the cellar hole, it looked like it was...was too dark down there...like it was the first place where night came, even though the sun had just dropped behind the hill. Eagle Hill, they call it. And down there, in the shadows, I saw this...this activity—like everything was under water or something. My mother was lying on the ground, and there were these...these things moving all around her. They were moving so fast I couldn’t really see anything clearly.”

  “So you don’t know what these shapes really looked like.”

  It was a statement more than a question. Kip shook his head angrily. “Come on, you know I don’t know. I’ve told you a hundred times, they were...were little creatures...little brown things, and they were swarming all over her. Suddenly, her shirtsleeve flew up into the air and landed right there at my feet. I screamed, and when I did, it was like, all of a sudden they were just gone— vanished.”

  “And then you’ve told me you were never sure, but you think you might have blacked out for a short time,” Dr. Fielding said.